Canada expands list of banned firearms to include hundreds of new models and variants

The Canadian government is expanding its list of banned firearms, adding hundreds of additional makes, models and their variants, effective immediately.

Lawful owners of these newly prohibited firearms will be granted amnesty from criminal liability, with strict conditions, while they take the steps required to comply, ahead of disposing of their firearms through the still-yet-to-be-implemented buyback program.

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Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc made the announcement alongside Public Services and Procurement Minister Jean-Yves Duclos and Defence Minister Bill Blair, in Ottawa on Thursday.

"The best thing we can do to honour the memories of those we lost in mass shootings, is to act on gun control and to restrict access to the very weapons used to commit these horrible crimes," LeBlanc said.

"Our goal is to ensure that no community, no family, is devastated by mass shootings in Canada again."

Prohibited firearms cannot be bought, sold, lent, or imported.

Thursday's announcement specifically revises the classification of "104 families of assault-style firearms, encompassing 324 unique makes and models and their variants," according to government officials that briefed reporters.

The affected firearms all have semi-automatic action with sustained rapid-fire capability, according to the government, and will have to be disposed of within the amnesty period, which expires on Oct. 30, 2025.

The federal Liberals also intend to move forward with additional regulatory and legislative measures in the days and months ahead.

This will include tabling regulations on Dec. 13 to strengthen Canada's gun classification regime. And, building on the controversial Bill C-21 that passed Parliament in December 2023, the government's promising to table "additional measures" to address the rates of gun violence in situations of gender-based and intimate partner violence, in January 2025.

"We will also introduce further regulations on red and yellow flag laws early this spring, and regulations on large capacity magazines no later than March," LeBlanc said.

Blair also revealed that federal government is in talks with Ukrainian officials about shipping the firearms the government eventually intends to collect, to assist in Ukraine's war effort.

"We've been working very closely with our friends in Ukraine to ensure that weapons that were intended to be used in combat, could be made available to them," Blair said.

"The Department of National Defence will begin working with the Canadian companies that have weapons that Ukraine needs and which are already eligible for the assault-style firearm compensation program, in order to get these weapons out of Canada, and into the hands of the Ukrainians."

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The federal Liberals' gun control announcement comes on the eve of the 35th anniversary of the École Polytechnique massacre.

Ahead of the news breaking, the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights was already criticizing the move as damaging to licensed gun owners, "while doing nothing to increase the safety of Canadians."

Echoing this, Wes Winkel of the Canadian Sporting Arms and Ammunition Association said the announcement could be "devastating for our industry."

"Anger and disappointment would be definitely the two emotions, I would say, are the most fitting for this," he said. "We very rarely see these types of firearms used in crimes at all."

"This is strictly trying to appease voters in urban Canada… there is no reason for public safety concern for these firearms to be out in circulation," Winkel said.

The Liberals had been facing pressure to ban additional firearms that came on the market after 2020, and before the Liberals passed Bill C-21.

Gun-control advocates attending the announcement, welcomed the news, saying it's "an important step forward," that is giving hope that the government will go further.

"I know I'm crying but I'm also smiling, because it's an important step forward and I really believe that what remains to be done, will be done," said École Polytechnique massacre survivor and a founder of PolySeSouvient. 

This move builds on the May 2020 announcement that saw Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reveal that the federal government was imposing a ban on more than 1,500 models and variants of certain "assault-style" weapons that have been used in mass shootings in Canada and abroad.

The ban did not outlaw these weapons completely, rather the government offered current owners and retailers of these guns the same ability to be granted amnesty under specific and time-limited terms, while officials developed the mandatory compensation system.

So far, all that the government has managed to get off the ground in terms of the "Assault Style Firearms Compensation Program," is a pilot of the business-phase, with promises that all other businesses will be receiving instructions on how to participate, soon.

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The Liberals said compensation amounts for the newly prohibited firearms will be added in late January 2025, and information for how individual firearm owners on how to participate in the buyback will come "later in 2025." 

Reacting to the announcement Conservative MP and public safety critic Raquel Dancho accused Trudeau of attacking "lawful and vetted hunters, sport shooters, and Indigenous Peoples who safely and legally use firearms as they have done for generations."

"Trudeau’s latest underhanded attack against lawful Canadians and his continued blind eye to actual gun criminals is an insult to the thousands of victims of gun crime who continue to be terrorized and lose their lives as a result of Trudeau's catch-and-release policies," she said.